Thousands of records associated with District business licenses are chaotically stored in a wide-open office, according to a recent inspection report, leaving personal information easily accessible to virtually anyone.
The Occupational and Professional Licensing Division, a branch of the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, kept records “in such disarray” that the D.C. inspector general was unable to review the documentation. The division supports professional licensing boards, with oversight of 37,064 District professionals in 127 occupations.
The IG’s inspection team, as part of a two-year evaluation of all DCRA operations, attempted to review a sample of licensure records, but instead found the files were “intermixed and were not filed by date, in alphabetic order or by license number.”
The records included Social Security numbers, license applicant addresses, reference letters, licensure status, education credentials and examination scores, among other personal identifying information. Austin Andersen, deputy inspector general, said the filing system “could be a security breach.”
The record file and storage area was accessible to all DCRA employees no matter their level of authorization, according to the inspector general; the division lacked adequate storage space, and many of the records had not been scanned to a computer.
Division leadership acknowledged difficulties with the filing and retrieval of records and indicated that they had requested scanning of all licensee records, the IG wrote in its report, but “management indicated that due to other agency scanning priorities, this project has never been initiated.”
